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Asia in numbers: China

Matt Kuchar of the U.S. walks after finishing the 9th hole during the third day of the Mission Hills World Cup golf tournament in Haikou, Hainan province, Southern ChinaKin Cheung/AP

£11,000... will be the price of a set of Yamaha Inpres X Classic golf clubs when the gleaming, gold-tinted monstrosities hit the dealerships of Beijing and Shanghai this month.

In their shiny swagger, the clubs combine the precision craftsmanship of the world’s finest pianos with the studied ostentation of a loose-fitting Rolex, a blend explicitly created with the Chinese golf market in mind.

Yamaha would know a bit about this. China’s golf industry is on very similar territory to Japan’s a quarter of a century ago, growing at 20 per cent a year and gulping down large areas of precious countryside to make way for the ill-dressed and expensively equipped. Japan’s golf industry, meanwhile, is contracting, hence the shift of geographic focus for Yamaha, Maruman…